Downing Street has said no reciprocal action is “off the table” if the US does not honour its tariff deal with the UK, but added that “no one wants a trade war”.

It comes after US President Donald Trump announced a 15% tariff on all countries from Tuesday.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said the “majority” of the UK-US deal, such as the tariffs on cars, steel, and pharma, was not expected to change, but described the situation as “evolving” and said discussions between the UK and US were ongoing.

Meanwhile, the EU put its US tariff deal on holdon Monday in response to the 15% tariff announcement as Trump warned that countries that “play games” will face even higher tariffs.

On Friday, the US Supreme Court outlawed most of the global tariffs that Trump had announced last year, saying the president had overstepped his powers.

That ruling affected all tariffs Trump had introduced using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which includes all those announced on “Liberation Day” last year.

Trump then announced a new 10% global tariff would replace the ones struck down, and on Saturday revised the rate to 15%.

Britain’s Business and Trade Secretary Peter Kyle said he has raised concerns over Trump’s tariff plans with his US counterpart, Jamieson Greer.

Kyle said he is “laser-focused on protecting businesses and the British public and all options are on the table”.

He also stressed the importance of both sides honouring the existing trade deal between the UK and US.

The Trump administration’s new15% tariff will be introduced as a temporary solution under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act. Some products will be exempted under the levy, such as critical minerals, metals and pharmaceuticals.

Analysis from think tank Global Trade Alert (GTA) found that the UK will be among the countries worst hit if the 15% global tariff goes ahead because it had negotiated a 10% tariff deal with the US.

Meanwhile, the GTA said countries such as China and Brazil, which currently have higher tariff rates, would be better off.

The 15% global levy does not affect tariffs the UK and US had agreed on specific sectors, such as steel, aluminium, pharmaceuticals, automobiles and aerospace, which represent most of the UK’s trade with the US.

Only sectors beyond those the UK had negotiated separate sectorial tariffs would face the 15% global rate.

This is because the Section 122 legislation Trump has said he will use to impose his 15% tariff is different from the way in which tariffs on specific sectors are introduced.

The British Chamber of Commerce’s president, Andy Haldane, told the BBC the UK would “sit towards the bottom of league table” of trade partners if Trump’s 15% tariff came into effect.

“The perversity of what happened of the weekend was that those who got good deals, the allies, have been most disadvantaged,” he added.

‘On hold until further notice’

US trade representative Greer told CBS on Sunday that he had spoken to the EU and other countries over the weekend.

“The deals were not premised on whether or not the emergency tariff litigation would rise or fall,” he said.

“These deals are going to be good deals. We expect to stand by them. We expect our partners to stand by them.”

Despite Greer’s assurances, the EU Parliament said on Monday it would put the deal it had secured with the US last year “on hold until further notice”.

Bernd Lange, chair of Parliament’s international trade committee, said “the situation is now more uncertain than ever”.

“Clarity and legal certainty are needed before any further steps can be taken,” he added in social media post.

In a possible reference to the EU’s decision, Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday that “Any Country that wants to “play games” with the ridiculous supreme court decision […] will be met with a much higher Tariff, and worse, than that which they just recently agreed to”.

The UK prime minister’s official spokesman said: “Our approach to the US has always been pragmatic.

“We continue to have productive conversations with them… and those discussions are happening at all levels, but nothing is off the table at this stage.

“Industry doesn’t want to see a trade war where both sides keep escalating the situation, and that’s why our focus is on constructive engagement with our US counterparts to retain the UK’s competitive advantage.”

Richard Rumbelow, director of international business at manufacturing industry body Make UK, said many UK exporters will be “concerned at the further prospect of trade disruption to goods entering the US market”.

“Clarity is now urgently required on how UK exports will be treated on arrival into the United States,” he added.

By Bonface Mulyungi

The youngest son of Zimbabwe’s late former President Robert Mugabe has been formally charged with attempted murder at a brief appearance in a South African court.

Bellarmine Mugabe, 28, was arrested last week after a 23-year-old man was shot and injured at a property in an upmarket suburb of Johannesburg last Thursday. He was then taken into custody alongside his bodyguard – neither man has commented on the charges.

Appearing in court, dressed in black, Mugabe looked calm during the proceedings.

Bellarmine is the youngest son of Robert and his second wife Grace Mugabe. Robert Mugabe, who died in 2019, led Zimbabwe for 37 years before being forced out of power at the age of 93 in 2017.

Searching the property in Hyde Park where the shooting happened, police have found bullet cartridges but no firearm so far.

Mugabe and Tobias Tamirepi Matonhodze, 33, also face additional charges, including defeating the ends of justice, which relates to the missing firearm, prosecutors say.

The victim is in hospital and in a critical condition.

Speaking outside court, Mugabe’s lawyer Sinenhlanhla Mnguni provided an update on his well-being, telling reporters his client was “fine” as he remains in custody.

Describing the circumstances of the shooting, prosecutors allege that “an altercation occurred between the victim and the accused inside Mugabe’s home”.

While attempting to flee the victim was then allegedly “shot in the back and collapsed outside the gate” and the gate was then closed, according to a statement from the National Prosecuting Authority.

The case against Mugabe and Matonhodze was postponed until 3 March when a bail application will be made.

BBC -Ofcom has fined a porn company £1.35m for failing to introduce proper age verification measures on its websites.

The media regulator said 8579 LLC’s sites did not have “highly effective” methods to check UK visitors were over 18 and prevent children accessing the content.

The fine – Ofcom’s largest levied under the Online Safety Act (OSA) so far – comes after it began probing the firm “within days” of age check rules taking effect in July 2025.

8579 LLC has also been fined a further £50,000 for not responding to Ofcom’s information requests.

According to Ofcom, the company failed to implement highly effective age checks on most of its porn sites between 25 July and at least 19 November 2025.

The regulator says 8579 LLC must implement robust methods to check UK visitors are over 18 on one remaining site before 17:00 GMT on Monday, or face an additional £1,000 daily penalty.

George Lusty, director of enforcement at Ofcom, said it had “been clear” adult sites needed to deploy robust age checks to protect children in the UK form seeing porn.

“Those that fail to do this – or ignore legally binding requests from us – should expect to face fines,” he added.

The regulator is also requiring 8579 LLC to provide Ofcom with a complete list of all sites it operates, after failing to respond to the regulator’s information requests.

It risks a further additional daily fine of £250 if it does not comply.

Ofcom has already launched probes into many porn sites lacking age checks and handed down decisions, including fines, for some.

In December it fined porn company AVS Group Ltd £1m for continued non-compliance with the OSA.

Ofcom later said AVS had rolled out age checks on some of its porn sites.

Meanwhile on 2 February, Pornhub began restricting access to its website in the UK.

Aylo, Pornhub’s parent company, said the OSA had “not achieved its goal of protecting minors”.

It also said the law had “diverted traffic to darker, unregulated corners of the internet”.

The Act is a set of laws and duties online platforms must follow, that are implemented and enforced by Ofcom.

Under its Children’s Codes, platforms must also prevent young people from encountering harmful content relating to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders and pornography.

BBC -Archaeologists have described their race against time to document rare 2,000-year-old footprints uncovered on the Angus coast before the winter storms which had revealed them also wiped them away.

The human and animal prints were discovered by dog walkers Jenny Snedden and Ivor Campbell in ancient clay deposits at Lunan Bay beach near Montrose.

They had lain undiscovered beneath sand dunes but were exposed when they were scoured away by strong winds and high tides.

A team from Aberdeen University was despatched to document the scene, stopping to pick up supplies like plaster of Paris from craft shops on the way, before the site was destroyed by the weather forever.

Lunan Bay locals Ivor and Jenny were walking their dogs Ziggy and Juno along the sands late last month when they saw that storm damage to the dunes had revealed a fresh layer of clay – and Ivor noticed distinct markings.

He called council archaeologist Bruce Mann on 26 January who called in expertise from the University of Aberdeen who were on site the following day.

Prof Kate Britton from the university said it was a real archaeological emergency.

“This email came in quite late at night and we really rushed to get all our materials together,” she said.

“We had a lot of late night phone calls planning how we could get to the site and record it, because it was revealed by these unseasonably harsh storms we’ve all been experiencing in Scotland this winter.

“But of course, those storms had revealed the site, but were also actively destroying it at the same time.”

The team worked in wind speeds of more than 55mph (88km/h), while being struck by whipped up sand, to preserve evidence of the footprints.

The university said similar markings had been identified at sites in England including the Severn Estuary, Formby in Merseyside, and Happisburgh in Norfolk, but there was no previous record of a similar site in Scotland.

“There are very few sites like this globally, it needs to be said,” said Britton.

“What’s interesting is the sandy beach there now, it didn’t used to be like that.”

She said it would previously have been a “lush salt marsh” full of plants which would have attracted animals and, in turn, humans – possibly for fishing or hunting.

She added that as well as delivering a “snapshot moment” it also showed how people had lived and what their environment had been like.

The team were able to record and map the site, and capture 3D models and physical casts of the prints.

Radiocarbon dating of preserved plant remains confirmed the markings were made about 2,000 years ago.

Ongoing analysis has identified footprints of red deer, roe deer and other animals as well as humans.

They were also able to capture drone images which will help establish a baseline for examining the rate of erosion of this part of the coast – and the risks to other potential sites.